Poets and Poems Included
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Johnathon Aaron | "The Voice from Paxos" | The New York Review of Books |
| Ai | "Evidence: From a Reporter's Notebook" | Pequod |
| Dick Allen | "Talking with Poets" | The Hudson Review |
| Julia Alvarez | "Bookmaking" | Green Mountains Review |
| John Ash | "Cigarettes" | Mudfish |
| John Ashbery | "Of Dreams and Dreaming" | Grand Street |
| George Bradley | "Great Stone Face" | Partisan Review |
| Joseph Brodsky | "In Memory of My Father: Australia" | The New Yorker |
| Gerald Burns | "Double Sonnet for Mickey" | Temblor |
| Amy Clampitt | "A Whippoorwill in the Woods" | Boulevard |
| Marc Cohen | "Blue Lonely Dreams" | The Paris Review |
| Alfred Corn | "Infernal Regions and the Invisible Girl" | Poetry |
| Stephen Dobyns | "Desire" | Antaeus |
| Stephen Dunn | "Bringing It Down" | The Georgia Review |
| Carolyn Forche | "The Recording Angel" | Antaeus |
| Alice Fulton | "The Fractal Lanes" | The Yale Review |
| Louise Glück | "Celestial Music" | New Letters |
| Jorie Graham | "The Phase After History" | The Paris Review |
| Melissa Green | "The Consolation of Boethius" | The Paris Review |
| Debora Greger | "The Afterlife" | The New Yorker |
| Linda Gregerson | "Safe" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Allen Grossman | "The Ether Dome (An Entertainment)" | Western Humanities Review |
| Thom Gunn | "The Beautician" | Ploughshares |
| Donald Hall | "Tubes" | Boulevard |
| Brooks Haxton | "Garden" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Daniel Hoffman | "Who We Are" | Grand Street |
| John Hollander | "The See-Saw" | The New Republic |
| Paul Hoover | "Desire" | o•blék |
| Ron Horning | "Second Nature" | The New Yorker |
| Richard Howard | "What Word Did the Greeks Have for It?" | The Threepenny Review |
| Josephine Jacobsen | "The Woods" | Ploughshares |
| Donald Justice | "Body and Soul" | Antaeus |
| Vickie Karp | "Elegy" | The New Yorker |
| Robert Kelly | "A Flower for the New Year" | o•blék |
| Jane Kenyon | "Let Evening Come" | Harvard Magazine |
| Karl Kirchwey | "The Diva's First Song (White's Hotel, London)" |
Partisan Review |
| Carolyn Kizer | "Marriage Song" | Antaeus |
| Kenneth Koch | "A Time Zone" | The Paris Review |
| John Koethe | "Morning in America" | American Poetry Review |
| Mark Levine | "Work Song" | The New Yorker |
| Laurence Lieberman | "Dark Songs: Slave House and Synagogue" | Pequod |
| Elizabeth Macklin | "At the Classics Teacher's" | The New Yorker |
| J. D. McClatchy | "An Essay on Friendship" | Poetry |
| James McManus | "Smash and Scatteration" | New American Writing |
| James Merrill | "The 'Ring' Cycle" | The New Yorker |
| Susan Mitchell | "Sky of Clouds" | Provincetown Arts |
| Gary Mitchner | "Benedick's Complaints: Ado About Nothing" |
Western Humanities Review |
| A. F. Moritz | "Protracted Episode" | Southwest Review |
| Thylias Moss | "Lunchcounter Freedom" | Gargoyle (magazine) |
| Joyce Carol Oates | "Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, 1942" | The Yale Review |
| Bob Perelman | "Chronic Meanings" | Temblor |
| Robert Polito | "Evidence" | Pequod |
| Katha Pollitt | "Night Subway" | The New Republic |
| Susan Prospere | "Into the Open" | The New Yorker |
| Jack Roberts | "The New Reforms" | Sites |
| Sherod Santos | "Two Poems" | The New Yorker |
| Lloyd Schwartz | "Leaves" | The New Republic |
| Robyn Selman | "Past Lives" | Ploughshares |
| David Shapiro | "The Seasons" | American Poetry Review |
| Laurie Sheck | "Living Color" | Ploughshares |
| Charles Simic | "Country Fair" | The New Yorker |
| David R. Slavitt | "The Wound" | Boulevard |
| Charlie Smith | "The Woman as Figure" | New American Writing |
| Elizabeth Spires | "The Haiku Master" | The New Criterion |
| David St. John | "Merlin" | Antaeus |
| Ruth Stone | "For Seven Women" | Boulevard |
| Patricia Storace | "War Movie: Last Leave, 1944" | Ploughshares |
| James Tate | "I Am a Finn" | The Iowa Review |
| Molly Tenenbaum | "Reminiscence Forward" | Fine Madness |
| David Trinidad | "Reruns" | Brooklyn Review |
| Chase Twichell | "Revenge" | Antaeus |
| Derek Walcott | "Omeros" | Partisan Review |
| Rosanna Warren | "Song" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Susan Wheeler | "Lasting Influence" | The Paris Review |
| Charles Wright | "Reading Lao Tzu Again in the New Year" |
Poetry |
Read more about this topic: The Best American Poetry 1991
Famous quotes containing the words poets, poems and/or included:
“Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Suppertime I float toward you
from the stewpot
holding poems you shrug off
and you kiss me like a mosquito.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“People accept a representation in which the elements of wish and fantasy are purposely included but which nevertheless proclaims to represent “the past” and to serve as a guide-rule for life, thereby hopelessly confusing the spheres of knowledge and will.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)